45 entries from July 2015

July 31, 2015

This work is not a product of the United States Government or the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the author is not doing this work in any governmental capacity. The views expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the United States or the US EPA.

July 30, 2015

Pythons present a low risk to visitors to the Florida Everglades, according to officials, but you'd probably still want to steer clear of this mammoth Burmese python recently captured by University of Florida researchers.

Caught along a popular wildlife-watching trail in Everglades National Park, the snake was a female measuring 18 feet, 3 inches, and weighing 133 pounds.

According to state wildlife officials, the longest python ever caught in Florida was 18 feet, 8 inches long.

*The anti-bucket list (sometimes referred to as a f***-it list) is a list of things that I am willing to forgo and have no need to do before I die. My list includes anything to do with snakes, extreme endurance, or giving up alcohol.

A shipping company will pay Hawaii more than $15 million to settle a spill that put 233,000 gallons of molasses into Honolulu Harbor in 2013.

The $15.4 million settlement -- a combination of cash, restoration and funding of environmental programs -- from Matson Navigation Company will reimburse Hawaii for costs related to cleaning up the harbor, regrow a coral nursery to replace coral damaged or destroyed by the spill, remove a molasses tank facility and support an upcoming international environmental conference.

The September 2013 spill occurred when a Matson ship, bound for the West coast, was being loaded with 1,600 tons of molasses. But a leak in a pipeline to the ship spewed the sticky stuff into the water, killing large amounts of coral and fish.

To put the spill in some perspective, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill was about 180,000,000 gallons. The settlement there was $18.7b. That's about $104 per gallon. The molasses spill was 230,000 gallons with a settlement of $15.4m. That's $66 per gallon. Conclusion: I have no freaking idea. I was hoping the math came out closer per gallon so I could say something snarky about how damages are calculated.

*A mother, father and baby mole are emerging from their tunnel. The mother mole sticks her head out into the bright sunshine, sniffs and declares "Yummm, I smell maple syrup." The father mole sticks his head out and declares, "Yummm, I smell honey." The baby mole, yells from the rear "Well, all I can smell is molasses."

July 29, 2015

The world may be getting warmer, but it is not getting much wetter. It quaffed 249 billion litres of alcoholic drinks in 2014, a modest increase of 1 billion over the preceding year. When measured by intake per head of the drinking-age population, consumption is down a little from a peak of 56.6 litres in 2012 to 55.4 litres in 2014. People in rich countries are the ones imbibing less—a moderation that has not (yet) been matched by a corresponding binge in emerging markets. India, for instance, is the ninth-largest alcohol market, yet consumption per head is low. Small wonder that drinks companies see an enormous market waiting to be tapped.

China's crashing stock market and the meltdown in the metals market may be getting all the attention lately, but crude oil is quietly crumbling once again. Oil has plunged nearly 20% this month alone and it briefly dipped below $47 a barrel on Tuesday. That leaves it flirting with the March lows, which was the weakest price since 2009.

The latest selling has been fueled by the same dynamics that caused oil to tumble from $100 last summer. The American energy revolution has created a massive supply glut and the tepid global economy is depressing demand growth.

The good news for American drivers is industry insiders expect these dynamics to persist, keeping energy prices cheap for some time. Thousands of U.S. gas stations will have sub-$2 gasoline prices by December, according to Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

July 28, 2015

In California, they're counting on it to end a historic drought; in Peru, they've declared a pre-emptive emergency to prepare for devastating flooding. It's an economic stimulus and a recession-maker. And it's likely to increase the price of coffee, chocolate and sugar.

It's El Niño — most likely, the largest in well over a decade, forecasters say. A lot more than mere weather, it affects lives and pocketbooks in different ways in different places.

Every few years, the wind shifts and the water in the Pacific Ocean gets warmer than usual. That water sloshes back and forth around the equator in the Pacific, interacts with the winds above and then changes weather worldwide. This is El Niño. Droughts are triggered in places such as Australia and India, but elsewhere, droughts are quenched and floods replace them. The Pacific gets more hurricanes; the Atlantic fewer. Winter gets milder and wetter in much of the United States. The world warms, goosing Earth's already rising thermometer from man-made climate change.

"Around the world, crops fail in some places, thrive elsewhere. Commercial fishing shifts. More people die of flooding, fewer from freezing. Americans spend less on winter heating. The global economy shifts."

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